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Woody

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Posts posted by Woody

    DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

    in DevDiaries

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Kordanor said:

    I am not sure why You, Woody but also anon think like you are the only people around who are allowed to write stuff and have an opinion...
    Also no need to spam that opinion yourselves.

    One of the interesting people I was referring to...

    DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

    in DevDiaries

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, agris said:

    I don't mean to be rude, but this is fundamentally incorrect and not applicable to type of hit system used in JA3, described in this very update!

    IWD, Fallout, and most of the renaissance-era cRPGs used probabilistic hit systems rooted in rolling dice. In IWD and all of the Infinity Engine engine games, "chance to hit" is never displayed! All except IWD2 use something called THAC0 - To Hit Armor Class 0, a threshold reference value by which you understand your chance to hit something based on the roll of a 20-sided die. Fallout 1 & 2 used a GURPS-like system loosely based on d100 rolls.

    Rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of exactly why you're incorrect, I'd rather focus your attention on the fact that what was determining hits or not was the roll of dice, that's the probabilistic component.

    JA1, JA2, X-COM 1 & 2, and JA3 don't use this type of system. They use ballistic modeling, which computes bullet trajectories. There is a "random" component, owing to how they account for marksmanship skill and what it does to the sway of the firearm, but it is a fundamentally different system than the games you are trying to compare it to. Those fundamental differences are precisely why it makes sense for JA3 to not show CTH, and why if they wanted to show it, it isn't a simple matter of "just" displaying the value. It doesn't make much sense that way, and has a lot of pitfalls associated with it. Those pitfalls are described in this very dev diary! Rather, for a displayed CTH to make sense, it would be part of an alternate game mode involving probabilistic (nuXcom) style to-hit mechanics.

    That isn't JA, and I think is a waste of their time and resources. The developers are being brave, in comparison to their peers, to do something different than the current trends. I would hate to see their resolve flag and them design and implement a parallel system which dilutes their uniqueness and pushes the game more in the direction of nuXcom, away from JA.

     

    Woody, I think this comment reflects a lack of understanding of how the JA3 bullet trajectory and hit system works. You should re-read this Dev Diary and ask some questions if you need clarity, but what you've suggested here is not really compatible with the underlying mechanics. The existing bullet simulation system is why it's "easy" for the devs to compute when targeted shots miss whether they hit other body parts - it's already being computed by their bullet trajectory calculations used to determine the hit/miss! It's part of the same system that lets bullets pass through enemies and material, potentially hitting others. What's different with their targeted shots is that they've disabled the missed shot striking other parts, even if the computed trajectory says it would have. They say this could confuse players, but I don't think that's the case.

    Didn't you just get accused of being a bot in another forum thread?

    "I don't mean to be rude, but this is fundamentally incorrect and not applicable to type of hit system used in JA3, described in this very update!" You not being rude, you're being hysterical and mad.

    Nobody was even talking to you.

    Chill and relax. You already got accused of being a bot on this forum once, don't make me think you're going to be a permanent problem now.

    DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

    in DevDiaries

    Posted

    7 minutes ago, WILDFIRE said:

    I just read the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article about JA3 where the author criticizes all the vague informations shown in the current combat system. They say that the informations are very confusing and do not tell you exactly what they mean in the overall context.

     

    I am open in this discussion, because maybe there is no right or wrong. For me I appreciate every aspect that tries to go away from the typical nuXCOM formula. But I know that the shown numbers in JA3 can also be confusing. I am just afraid that the people are too used to the nuXCOM combat that they can not try something different but I want more freedom.

     

    I would like to see a combat that is chaotic (where things can go wrong like jamming weapons, where the own bullets can hit team members or civilians/the environment, where mercs do unexpected actions, where the bullet trajectory is not predictable every time) but at the same time the combat result should be plausible at the end.

     

    I hope the chaotic approach and the shown informations in JA3 make sense and that tutorial menus help to explain everything in detail. Sure all this is useless when there is no logic behind the current combat system/crosshair menu.

    I definitely think there's very little point to not having CTH, it's so silly

    @KyleSimmons said it correctly, developers were thinking of new ideas and new ways to change the formula, but not all new ideas are good. Sorry. Or even if they are good, then maybe they should be developed further, or maybe used in another context. Or maybe they're just not good ENOUGH to justify being implemented, and while the new idea might be good in some way, it's not good ENOUGH to be used.

    DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

    in DevDiaries

    Posted · Edited by Woody

    19 minutes ago, Reloecc said:

    I am sorry, but I am not sure how to get you. You are saying "I don't think this is a good idea" .. but I am not sure what you mean, as I didn't propose anything. I am just pointing to flaws current implementation could have. Please explain.

    First I don't think its a good idea because it just generates random misfirings or random hits even when you missed the part you were aiming for, like Boiyan said. I mean I actually don't think this is the worst case in the world as long as you clearly communicate why a shot didn't hit a particular body part but still hit another body part. But the cone approach is unnecessary. Just ask how close the hand is to the chest, if it's not close enough, then you can't miss by hitting the hand but hitting the chest.

    It appears that you're doing circle based measurements, but this is just unnecessary and may be very expensive computationally (or may not).

    And the second part of what I said was that what people should be thinking about is potentially having an organ impact system, where you can aim at specific organs, or things like joints, and then model that.

    Because if you think about it, hitting the hand, hitting the leg, this is just so silly, imo, if you think about it. There's no reason why hitting the hand just through the virtue of hitting the hand should do anything, inherently.

    But hitting the joint of the wrist? Yes, absolutely will have massive consequences. While if you hit the muscle, well now it's lesser consequences. Organ modelling would be the cool and correct way to make JA more complex etc.

    DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

    in DevDiaries

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Reloecc said:

    That's the brute-force approach I mentioned. But don't get me wrong.. I am not saying you'd need to manipulate trajectories. I wrote that statistically distribution is shifted. Because if you ommit all miss shots, that would otherwise hit a target, you are changing a shape of distribution - shifting it away from the target. See image below, if you ommit all misses that could hit a target in other body part and your miss shots may land in the green area only, your distribution of where misses can go is highly altered.

    Aiming a chest is the worst scenario because a ratio of green to red is enormous (in this particular accuracy, defined by the blue circle).

    Actually.. I just realized while drawing this masterpiece that if the misses are related to accuracy (see bellow) it may be harder to hit a chest than head in certain accuracies (circle sizes) because of the rule "miss can't hit other body part". We saw on the streams (and it has been said on this forum multiple times) that headshots are too easy to land, thus op.

    By saying "misses are related" to accuracy I mean there's no flat % predefined on misses. Like for example head allways have -30 % CtH and CtH is calculated without bullet simulation. And it also means there is not CtH cap (95% e.g.). If CtH is capped and your bullets may fly out of the accuraccy circle (because there's no accuracy circle) I am out.. that would be really bad 😞 so hoping that's not the case.

     

    hit.png

    I don't think this is a good idea, or necessary, or the best way to do tactical strategy.

    Just assign hit percentages to body parts, if they don't hit, oh well.

    You don't even have to do what you're proposing, all you have to do is to ask "this body part is within 1 feet of this other body part, which means there's a corresponding amount of chance to hit another body part. No fancy cone based calculation necessary.

    If you really want to be 400 IQ and intelligent, what you should really be thinking of, not just "what body part I can hit" but instead of that, organ modelling, and body part modelling like "I want to hit the bones of the arm" or "I want to hit the knee", which would obviously lead to vastly different results.

    Also create accompanying conditions, due to, for example, bullets hitting a knee, bullets hitting a leg bone and shattering that leg bone, bullets not doing any of the above and only hitting the muscle, bullets grazing the skin and fat layer which should be mildly uncomfortable but otherwise alright, bullets hitting the eye and disabling or limiting vision, bullets kicking up dust that can go into the eye without adequate eye protection...these are the ideas you should be thinking of, imo.

    DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

    in DevDiaries

    Posted

    Thank you for your post Boian!

    I in general think that there are reasons for doing everything and anything in JA3, but I think maybe there should be an emphasis to try to capture the tone of JA2.

    I saw somebody else bring up the Grit and Free Move features, and while it's not a deal breaker I do think it's a step away from the essence of JA.

    Strategies have a specific look and sound, and have specific design philosophies that go into creating them.

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